Globes taken by surprise

This year's crop of nominees offer some oddities

The Globes unveiling on Thursday offered more than its share of surprises.

“Babel,” which has a tentative showing at the box office and was absent from most critics kudos, had a surprisingly strong showing, with its trio of acting nods boosting it to a Globes-leading seven noms.

While Clint Eastwood was cited as director for “Flags of Our Fathers,” the film got no other noms. “Letters From Iwo Jima,” his other helming bid, got only one other nom.

“Thank You for Smoking” earned two (comedy film and actor in a comedy).

Other surprises include Maggie Gyllenhaal for “Sherrybaby,” Chiwetel Ejiofor for “Kinky Boots,” Johnny Depp for the “Pirates of the Caribbean” sequel and Emily Blunt for “The Devil Wears Prada” (Blunt is also nommed for TV’s “Gideon’s Daughter.”

As befitting an organization that is centered on the foreign press, the 64th annual noms included a healthy serving of foreign folks.

All five of the contenders for original score were born outside of the U.S. That’s true of three out of the five screenplay contenders. And of the 30 acting hopefuls, 12 are foreign-born. (The supporting actor race is the only one that has solely American actors.) Penelope Cruz (“Volver”) and Adriana Baraza and Rinko Kikuchi (both from “Babel”) are nommed for foreign-language performances.

But the Globes also went Hollywood, nominating a slew of TV viewer-luring stars, including Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Beyonce Knowles, Will Smith, Jack Nicholson and Clint Eastwood.